National Standards and history teaching in Brazil

It is undeniable that the entire syllabus, and all subjects within it, are objects of constant conflict, which are reconfigured in each context. Since the end of the 20th century, Brazilian education has been the object of disputes that go beyond specific issues of the areas of knowledge involved. ^{Silva (2018}) points out how propositions from the late 1990s, largely based on the idea of ​​competences, were developed over time and, more recently, recovered in the BNCCs , articulating political and economic interests. Such propositions directly impact the subjects that make up this syllabus, in their purposes and in their epistemological specificities.

When discussing the trajectory of history teaching as a disciplinary code, ^{Schmidt (2012}) presents a periodization that encompasses the four most important periods of this production in Brazil: “construction of the disciplinary code of history (1838-1931); consolidation of the disciplinary code of history (1931-1971); crisis of the disciplinary code of history (1971-1984); reconstruction of the disciplinary code of history (1984-?)” ( ^{SCHMIDT, 2012}, p. 78). Subsequently, based on research on Brazilian academic production related to history teaching, ^{Gonçalves (2019}) states that the beginning of the 21st century could be identified as a fifth period, which brings consolidation in the field of history teaching in Brazil. This entire trajectory and field production brings significant contributions to the understanding of both the subject in its organization and consolidation in the school syllabus as well as issues involving its epistemology, theoretical and political disputes, knowledge and practices, among others, in an already quite mature set and dynamic of research and reflection, which, when it comes to the dimension of educational policies, is often disregarded or underestimated due to other interests and references that are at stake. The BNCC is the most recent prescriptive document about the Brazilian school syllabus, within which history is found. Let's see how the articles that make up this dossier help us to understand these conflicts, processes and challenges.

The first article in the dossier, entitled The bath, the water, the basin, and the child: history and historians in the discard of the first version of the Base Nacional Comum Curricular of History for Elementary School, written by Luís Fernando Cerri and Maria Paula Costa, shows a great challenge for the field of history teaching: the internal disputes, which arise from difficulties of dialogue between history researchers and history teachers , or history researchers and history teaching researchers, even though they all have a background in history. This issue has already been addressed from different perspectives by ^{Martins (2002}), ^{Mesquita (2008}), ^{Monteiro (2013}) and ^{Cerri (2018)}, among other authors, who brought to light a challenge in the construction of its legitimacy in the History Teaching field itself. , before the already consolidated history. Such clashes take place, with greater or lesser force, within Departments, Departments of Education, Universities, and have been greater in academic events, such as those of the National Association of History (ANPUH), in which today there is guaranteed space for teaching as field of research and knowledge production.

In the case of this first article, the authors show the recrudescence of these conflicts, given the proposal of the first version of the BNCC, which presented a break with the historically consolidated quadripartite Eurocentric model , which still prevails in the syllabus of undergraduate courses and in elementary education itself and, in the end, remained in the Standards. These clashes were even more heated because they involved elements and arguments beyond academics and education, such as the media and political issues, which were very disputed in this context, partly because of the role of the Escola Sem Partido movement, but also because of the challenges and polarization between the right and left, which were happening at the time.

On the same topic, Cerri and Costa analyze elements that were brought up in the discussion about the BNCC, focusing greater efforts on the documents produced in the context of this conflict, and their consequences in the later versions of the history BNCC, which ended up configuring a sometimes retrograde proposal in relation to the reflections produced in the field and even to other guidelines, such as the National Curriculum Parameters ( PCNs ) from the late 1990s. However, this last version is less uncomfortable in the face of some interests that had been threatened in the first version of the Standards. From the perspective of the authors, the concern with the students' historical learning and the role that this Standards would have in this configuration and definition of priorities ended up being little problematized in the discussions, in relation to other concerns that were placed in the heat of the clashes.

In the second article of the dossier, entitled Victory of tradition or resistance of innovation: the teaching of history between the BNCC, the PNLD and the School, the authors Sandra Regina Ferreira de Oliveira and Flávia Eloisa Caimi , in a way, have as their starting point some of the conclusions of the previous article, as they start from the verification of the type of curriculum that BNCC established for the Final Years, because it is an official stage of Elementary School (chronological, linear, eurocentric, quadripartite ), in order to discuss how this impacts the National Textbook Program (PNLD), from the concept of curriculum (prescribed, edited and in action) (^{SACRISTÁN, 2013}).

At first, they approach the BNCC evidencing the assumptions of historical formation are embedded in this document and some of its limits, as well as the “direct correlation between the objects of knowledge and the skills to be developed”, through alphanumeric codes. Among these skills, identifying, analyzing, describing and discussing are the most recurrent.

Dealing with the PNLD, the authors start from the 2018 Notice (^{BRASIL, 2015}) and the 2020 Guide, focused on the Final Years of Elementary School, showing the alignment, which was already expected, with the BNCC, and the possible intention that this articulation could be used for large-scale assessment of the education system. From there, between the prescribed curriculum (BNCC) and the edited curriculum (materialized in the teaching material), they discuss the curriculum in action , remembering that teachers and students, situated in a given school culture , will not necessarily carry out the BNCC as it stands, since every curriculum is built in the movement, in the process, although this dimension has yet to be studied, in relation to the BNCC.

The third article, entitled BNCC and History Teaching: possible horizons, by Adriana Soares Ralejo, Rafaela Albergaria Mello and Mariana de Oliveira Amorim, in a way, meets the concern regarding this curriculum in action, which is mentioned in the previous work. The authors discuss possibilities and limits that the BNCC brings to history teaching, based on some research that contemplates this theme, and that seem to indicate a reasonable consensus that this document endorsed more traditions in the school syllabus of the subject, even in a retrograde and conservative perspective, as the previous articles already mentioned, than changes, especially regarding the listed contents and their organization throughout the series.

From the works that analyze the Standards and from the perspective of BNCC as a prescriptive document, to which teachers will attribute a given meaning in their practices, the authors propose the following question: “what potentials and changes can the BNCC generate in our teaching practice?”. For this purpose, they discuss the general competences established in the document, to guarantee students' learning rights and, in the case of history in particular, the idea of ​​a historian's attitude, which aims to provide a sense of learning, which is indicated by the authors as a potential investment axis for this teaching.

The first three articles in this dossier, therefore, have a common conclusion: in the BNCC, history as a subject presents much more traditions than changes. In this perspective, and considering what could be observed as habitus , or as field rules (^{BOURDIEU, 2004}), around the syllabus for history teaching, it is possible to think that beyond the academic, epistemological, political, economic, editorials and pedagogicals clashes that involved the BNCC for history teaching, it ended up translating, in its final version, an accommodation to a syllabus that, in a way, in its general structure, was and is consolidated in textbooks and practices including, since the original training of these teachers, via the undergraduate course. In addition to some specific differentiated issues, or sometimes, new concepts (or old, revamped) that reify consolidated practices, whether for reasons of accommodation to political, corporatist, research interests, or even to a certain tradition of what is understood for history teaching in common sense and within schools (which, at times, is articulated with areas of research consolidated in history), the idea of change is always more difficult to be accepted. Articulated with the habitus , with all the comfort that the already accommodated traditions bring, there is even a logic of survival and reality, which is often ignored or underestimated in the academic world in relation to the teaching action in public schools. The volume of classes, grades, contents, activities, students that these teachers have to deal with on a daily basis requires the organization of a practice, which is consolidated with the experiences and knowledge throughout their trajectory and which, although it is possible and common for them to incorporate changes and adjustments to it, if these are radical and imposed (from top to bottom, when there is no effective dialogue in the construction of the document), may seem unfeasible. We are not saying here that there is an automated practice, or at least that there is not only that, because, of course, this also exists, at all levels of education. But we consider that changing the whole logic of thinking about the subject, the organization of contents by grade, in a radical way, can be a very reckless and perhaps even frightening perspective, in practice. In fact, a change in the syllabus may be necessary and desirable, but for that, it would require a better strategy of construction, dissemination and implementation , articulated with actions of teacher training.

And if we consider the proposed rupture (more radical change) of the first version of the BNCC, from the perspective of the concepts mentioned, it is very easy to understand the defensive and aggressive reaction that took place, which will always be proportional to the proposed rupture. Although the voices of teachers from elementary education schools were perhaps the least heard or highlighted in the entire BNCC discussion, it seems certain that the final approved version does not structurally change what is already consolidated as school content for history, although, with alphanumeric codes, other issues have been added.

The issue here is not whether the proposal was interesting, adequate, or not; it is not a matter of discussing its merits, but rather of stating how the reaction to it was absolutely predictable, as long as the logic of the functioning of the fields and agents (and their interests) that are interrelated is minimally understood . Likewise, it seems predictable that the solution of accommodation to what was already consolidated would bring much less reaction or resistance, at least on a school level, as although it maintains the historical problematic of the subject (and not only history) regarding the amount of content versus its problematization or deepening, this solution does not radically change what was already done or the existence of this problem. In addition, this maintenance also meets the quadripartite tradition that is configured in Universities and in undergraduate syllabus, including teaching degrees. And in relation to what is new in the BNCC (materialized through alphanumeric codes), the next public notices and books approved by the PNLD should meet this demand.

Even the historian's attitude, mentioned in the third article, is not innovative. In a way and in other words, it is in line with the historical thinking already present in the PCNs , or with the historical awareness by Jorn Rusen (but without any explicit theoretical linkage), and which announces the understanding that history teaching must go beyond content, with a perspective that relates past and present (and future, according to Rusen ).

But it is important to highlight an aspect that represents an innovation, from the perspective of a regulatory and evaluative intention more clearly explained. When resumed as the organizing principle of the syllabus, competences and skills are now presented in an alphanumeric coding that places them in relation to the stage of elementary education, school year and sequence of skills . Why this form of organization? The PCNs created in the 1990s used a conceptual system based on general and specific objectives, contents, assessment criteria, guidelines and didactic methods, to be mobilized in the organization and production of the syllabus for the teaching of the proposed contents articulated with transversal themes. This document shows a way of thinking about the syllabus that was still guided by a logic inspired by technical rationality , but which advanced in the way of approaching the historical contents to be the object of teaching. In the PCNs for High Schools, the outstanding innovation was the organization by area of knowledge, reversing the logic that presided over the curricular organization proposed by Law 5692/1971 (^{BRASIL, 1971}). In PCNs for Secondary Education, skills and abilities are presented in order to guide the teaching-learning process, accompanied by text explaining about its meaning in the field of human sciences and the subjects that are a part of it.

In the document named National Curriculum Guidelines, published in 2013 (^{BRASIL, 2013}), the normative perspective is presented in the form of guidelines, based on “learning rights”, which should guide the educational processes. In addition to the stages, the different modalities of elementary education with their characteristics and specificities are presented and discussed, which represents an innovation in an inclusive perspective that considers the difference. As highlighted by ^{Macedo (2019}, p. 47) “this option was the result of demand from academic and social movements with a view to distance the proposal from the language of testing ”.

Studies that have already been published discuss how the BNCC in its final version is guided by a regulatory perspective of curricular organization, staged and linked to assessement within the scope of accountability policies (^{BALL, 2001}): “By bringing back competences - the PCNs (High School) were the first attempt to hegemonize them-- Brazilian curriculum policy assumes its links with an international movement, which, under the governance of the OCDE, has been putting into practice comparative international assessments” (^{MACEDO, 2019}, p 47).

The fourth article in the dossier, Work and politics for Teaching History: notes about the BNCC and the Professional and Technological Education, by Bergston Luan Santos, deals with the specificity of history teaching in the context of Professional High School, particularly from the categories of labor and politics, as brought into the BNCC.

The author situates the BNCC for High School, in which an Ethical Education is announced as an articulated axis; the area of ​​knowledge of Human Sciences and its Technologies, in which history is located; and problematizes the issue of whether or not it is mandatory in the syllabus, depending on the articulated axis indicated, among other elements. Regarding the labor and politics categories, listed among those that should be covered in High School, he discusses their potential for reflection and training for citizenship, but which are harmed, since, by the dissolution of history into human sciences, they can be approached in a timeless, naturalized and impoverished way. In this sense, it ends up pointing out an internal contradiction in the Standards, insofar as the announced historian’s attitude, mentioned in the previous article, at least in High School, ends up being seriously harmed.

The fifth article in the dossier, entitled Teaching History in the Base Nacional Comum Curricular: the historian attitude becoming competences, written by Maria Aparecida Lima Santos, addresses the relationship between the historian's attitude proposed in the BNCC of history , and the idea of competences, brought in the Common National Teacher Training Standards (BNCFP) (^{BRASIL, 2019}). In this context, the author problematizes the representation of the desirable teacher, expressed in the BNCFP, yet to be trained, so that the BNCC proposal is made viable .

The BNCFP deals with teacher training in general, that is, it guides degrees and, therefore, the discussion on the specificity of this proposal, in relation to history teaching, is important for the purposes of this dossier. The author emphasizes that in this document there is no precise definition of competences, although the term is recurrent, and the meaning and characterization that are added to it establish a direct link with practice, or the know-how. It also identifies that specific knowledge (in this case, historical) is subordinated to practice, with a reduction in theoretical training and emphasis on a perspective similar to training, characterizing what she calls neotechnicism. Santos questions that, in the bias assumed in the document, instead of a history teacher , it is oriented towards the training of a teacher who teaches history, thus it can also be problematized which historian’s attitude is expected from the teacher themselves, as well as from their future students.

Based on these considerations, and considering the arguments already presented about the syllabus kept in the BNCC and the understanding that the concepts of habitus and field can bring to the conflicts involving these prescriptive documents, it is also possible to problematize the BNCFP, with its emphasis on practice. Teacher training, since the 3+1 model, brings sour spots that are very difficult to overcome and that are still present in many undergraduate course syllabus for a degree in history, which are also configured, like the school syllabus, in some accommodations, one of which being the relationship (or lack thereof) between specific contents and historical knowledge itself, and its pedagogical dimension, the teaching of.

Perhaps it is possible to think of two extreme situations, as the balance and the necessary dialogue between them is yet to be built, and some prescriptive document won’t alone manage to change this configuration, but only a joint construction, by those involved in this frontier place (^{MONTEIRO; PENNA, 2011}) which is the history teaching: a predominance of specific contents of history, without being reflected in their pedagogical sense, that is, an emphasis on what to teach and a predominance of how to teach , focused on practice, without the necessary epistemological and theoretical basis to support the reflection on the why , the so and for those who teach, being this reflection essential for teaching (^{GONÇALVES; MONTEIRO, 2017}).

The discussion on teacher training continues in the article Education for Ethnic-Racial Relations and the training of History teachers in the new guidelines for teacher training!, by Mauro Cezar Coelho and Wilma Nazaré Baía Coelho. In it, the authors deal with a specific dimension of this training, namely, the preparation of teachers to face racism and its consequences and, within this reflection, they also bring a very concrete example about some of the criticisms made by Santos to the BNCFP .

To do so, they carry out an extensive documental analysis, identifying in 47 degree courses in history of the country the space and way of approaching Education for ethnic-racial relations. They confirm the predominance of historiographical knowledge in this training, and that two essential dimensions for teaching in elementary education are relegated to the background: "the specificity of school historical knowledge and the context of Brazilian education and the public served by it", which necessarily involves ethnic and cultural diversity.

Regarding the BNCFP, they note that in this document, the National Curriculum Guidelines for Education for Ethnic-Racial Relations, also approved by the National Education Council in 2004, and still in force , are ignored. Analyzing the general competences, specific competences and skills that the BNCFP establishes for teachers, the authors identify the predominance of technical skills (in line with the article by Maria Aparecida Lima Santos, but from another theoretical perspective), and the absence of ability aimed at recognizing and dealing with ethnic-racial issues, and facing racism and its consequences. This silencing of the document, if articulated with the permanence of the Eurocentric and quadripartite bias in the BNCC, indicates choices about, at the very least, not dealing with this serious problem that still permeates the curriculum, the school and our society.

This set of articles related to different dimensions of the BNCC and the BNCFP, from a perspective of the specificities of history teaching in Brazil, allow us to observe how old challenges are now linked to political propositions that do not seek to face them, but that sometimes ignore them, prescribing or silencing prescriptions that will potentially aggravate them, or, at the very least, contribute to their maintenance. What is in place is a sense for basic education and for the training of teachers for it, in which the predominance of doing, how and applying is very clear, at the expense of understanding, reflecting and knowing in the sense of a more elaborate, critical and significant historical awareness.

National Standards and History Teaching in Brazil and other countries

The next set of articles focuses on issues related to curriculum policies in a comparative approach between the Brazilian reality and that of other countries. In the seventh article of the dossier, Possibilities in the struggle for teaching black stories in the era of national curricular standards in Brazil and the United States: Law 10639/03 and the National History Standards, Jessika Rezende Souza da Silva and Amílcar Araújo Pereira address history teaching in a transnational perspective, putting into dialogue the experiences of Federal Law 10.639 / 2003, in Brazil, and the National History Standards , from the 1990s, in the United States, in the struggle for recognition of the protagonism of black people and the diversity of their trajectories in school syllabus. The approach is carried out considering the context in which the implementation of national curricular standards has been disseminated in the globalized world, with the intention of putting into effect models of content and skills that prepare students to respond to classification and standardized tests. At the same time, it focuses on initiatives of the black movement in a transnational scope that, investing in more democratic and inclusive proposals, fights to break with Eurocentrism and racism, which have historically structured curriculum patterns present in education, both in Brazil and in the US. The authors point out some similarities and differences, including the role of teachers in their schools in implementing these changes, as well as the conservative reaction that has sought to stop or impede the advancement of these policies. The article also offers an important contribution to the discussion about the strategic place of the prescribed curriculum in political conflicts for the construction of a democratic education.

In the article Is the neighbor’s garden more beautiful or is it further from our eyes? The contents of the recent past at the BNCC of History in Brazil and the NAP in Argentina, Helenice Aparecida Bastos Rocha and Maria Paula Gonzalez present a comparative analysis of the appropriation of recent history, especially of military dictatorships, in two official documents that guide the definition of a national syllabus - the Brazilian Common National Curriculum Base (BNCC) and the Argentinian Priority Learning Nucleus (NAP), two countries that experienced authoritarian regimes in the second half of the 20th century. The theme gains relevance at the present time, marked by the proliferation of denial discourses and justifications for human rights violations committed during dictatorial regimes in South America.

The article presents an overview of the context of creation of the BNCC and the treatment of this content, doing the same, then, for the NAPs , analyzing how this recent past is narrated to new generations in the form of teaching and learning themes. In the analysis, the authors investigate the social needs aimed at structuring these documents, as well as the meanings attributed to these experiences, focusing on the options defined in the appropriation of the historiographical debate. It is interesting to highlight the different forms of reception of these documents in both countries: rejection and criticism in Brazil, and support and acceptance in Argentina, which leads us to reflect on generalizing analyzes carried out on curricular proposals and their effects.

Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Recent curriculum policies for teaching of history and social sciences in basic education and initial teacher preparation, a text by Léia Adriana da Silva Santiago, Martha Cecilia Gutiérrez Giraldo, and Paulina Lapatí Escalante, presents a synthesis of the purposes that guide the curricular proposals for history and social sciences teaching in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, since the end of the 20th century and throughout the 21st century, showing that these have been dependent on government policies and reforms that respond more to hegemonic views and disputes between subjects, rather than the goals of training citizens. The analysis of initial teacher education policies for these same subjects, in the three countries, shows how they respond to the recommendations of international organizations, which has led to a devaluation of the importance of training for teachers in these areas of knowledge. The authors conclude by stating that it is still necessary to carry out research on the initial training of history and social science teachers that contribute not only to a better understanding of the issues involved in this training, but also in the context of teaching in basic education.

Somehow, the article entitled The teaching of history and social sciences in primary education in Colombia: from curricular policies to educational practices, by Diana Marcela Arana Hernández and Martha Cecilia Gutiérrez Giraldo, offers a contribution in the sense proposed by the authors of the article that precedes it, by presenting the results of a research carried out on the history and social sciences teaching in primary education in Colombia, focusing on the relationship between curriculum policies and the practice of teachers. Initially presenting a synthesis of what has been the history and social sciences teaching in this country in recent decades, the authors problematize the relationship between initial training, teaching practice and government policies focusing on teachers at the beginning of their careers, when, generally, many criticisms are made of the insufficiency of initial training to face the challenges of teaching. The practice of two beginning elementary school teachers who teach in public educational institutions is analyzed through a case study, based on the question: is what they think related to what they do in practice, with regard to to the purposes of teaching social sciences, considering the purposes foreseen in these policies? The results show two experiences that converge in the objectives that teachers propose (critics) and differ in the purposes that are evident in their practices (one positivist and the other critical). The results make it possible to question the meaning of the debates on government policies for teaching social sciences and what happens with the initial training of generalist teachers for teaching these sciences.

In these four articles, issues related to history and social sciences teaching in the United States and Latin American countries were analyzed: the implementation of anti-racist policies, the approach of issues relevant to recent dictatorial regimes and, more broadly, the discussion on effects of educational policies advocated by multilateral organizations on prescribed syllabus, teacher autonomy and teaching practice. This discussion crosses the articles and highlights a concern present in the field of curriculum: how to resist to new forms of regulation in teaching action that have been implemented in different countries through instruments created within the scope of accountability policies?

Among different authors who have questioned these policies, ^{Zeichner (2010}) points out the dissatisfaction generated by policies of deprofessionalization, attacks on university institutions for teacher training and privatization of education. Nóvoa also warns us about this "political privatization project that has been conducted in the name of "saving" the public dimension of education" and which has as its counterpart the disqualification of training offered in university institutions, according to its detractors, which is very focused on theoretical aspects to the detriment of addressing practical issues (^{NÓVOA, 2017}, p. 1110).

^{Macedo (2019}), in addition to discussing the links of these policies to multilateral organizations, and their consequences, focuses on the use of skills and abilities as a form of presentation and organization of school subjects that, in addition to emptying their social, cultural and political dimensions, establish standards compatible with institutional assessment practices - national and international - thus contributing to deepening mechanisms for regulating and controlling teacher education and practice.

Concluding the dossier, we have the article entitled History curricula in England, Portugal and Spain: different contexts and similar issues written by Antoni Santisteban-Fernández , Alfredo Dias Gomes, and Edda Sant Obiols, in which the analysis is based on the same interpretive scheme: initially, a description of the curricular context and tradition, later, the analysis of the different elements of the syllabus. Purposes, temporal and spatial scales, content and methodological approach are focused on syllabus aimed at compulsory secondary education in each country, although the ages of students at these stages do not exactly match. The study shows that there are differences between the three countries regarding the process of elaboration and debates about the curriculum, or the defined priorities. The role of teachers in making decisions about what and how to teach, the usefulness of history to understand the current world, the formation of historical thinking, as well as the relationship between historical education and education for citizenship, are analyzed. The comparative approach makes it possible to understand the differences between the three countries, as well as the different directions in how to deal with common problems.

After reading this article, it is possible to see that the autonomy of teachers to define curriculum development, the way to approach the time scale in their organization and the directions for the formation of historical thinking are issues focused on their different contexts. But it is worth highlighting an aspect that was not the object of attention in the article, but that catches the reader's eye when observing the contents indicated in the three countries: the Eurocentrism that prevails in the defined selection and that, of course, affects the formation for citizenship of the students when reflecting on the relationship with other societies, especially those constituted as ex-colonies, with their demands and positions in the contemporary context of international relations.

Issues related to curriculum policies and their effects allow us, in a comparative perspective, to see how, even in the context of imposing policies that seek to produce a "common" through the curriculum, attention is turned, in most articles, to the search for difference, for alternatives found for insurgencies, which present some similar aspects, but which express meanings attributed, possible, to the contexts in which they develop. Certainly there are challenges that are present in several countries, such as those mentioned in the article on history and social sciences teaching in primary education in Colombia: the generalist training of teachers in the Early Years and history and social sciences teaching, a challenge also verified in Brazil, as well as the effects of the development of educational policies from multilateral organisms.